Masters: Team rhino's Leipert Oschersleben preview

Team rhino's Leipert (Wegberg)
Impressive catch-up race with "happy end" at Oschersleben
(04/10/2010) The 7th Championship weekend of the ADAC GT Masters was held at Motopark
Oschersleben on the first weekend in October. Drivers Norman Knop...

Team rhino's Leipert (Wegberg)

Impressive catch-up race with "happy end" at Oschersleben

(04/10/2010) The 7th Championship weekend of the ADAC GT Masters was held at Motopark
Oschersleben on the first weekend in October. Drivers Norman Knop and Roland Rehfeld, the
2 drivers of Team rhino's Leipert, were well prepared for the final of the strongest national GT
Championship worldwide when they arrived in the Magdeburger Boerde. The Team's goal for the two
free training sessions: Get a stable basic setup for the races! This strategy proved to be the right one
in the end.

Norman Knop from Willich finished a very good 6th place in the qualifying for race 1 whilst Roland
Rehfeld only made 16th place in the 24 vehicle-strong field of racing cars. So, after the qualifying, the
Team evaluated their performance and corrected mistakes. During the qualifying for race 2, Roland
Rehfeld broke part of the stabilizer on the front axis which prevented a better result.

At noon on Saturday, race 13 of the ADAC GT Masters 2010 started. Norman Knop was the first
driver. He had another of his legendary good starts and steered rhino's Leipert's Ascari round the first
bends of the arena in 5th place. However, this was already all that went well for the Team in this race.
During the first lap, a competitor crashed into the rear of the Ascari so that the car was hardly drivable.
The team tried with all their fighting spirit to save what could be saved during the obligatory pit-stop,
but Roland Rehfeld had to park up the car prematurely only 40 minutes into the race.

With the intention to finish the finale 2010 in a positive way, the Ascari GT3 entered the race on
Sunday from position 16. Roland Rehfeld was the first driver and skillfully managed to keep out of all
unnecessary and at times very hard duels and raced a very good first stint at impressive consistency.
He made up 6 places and handed over the Team rhino's Leipert's Ascari to Norman Knop in
10 position at half-time. The first 8th positions were within reach - and this meant important points for
the championship. Knop could match his partner and also drove at high level and at consistent speed
whilst his competitors weakened slightly. The 22 year-old student could make good use of this and
pushed himself forward to 7th place after spectacular duels.

Team Manager Ingo Leipert had this to say: "A great compliment to the Team, Roland and Norman.
After the unlucky first race, we managed to use our potential in the second race and therefore
managed to show a great catch-up race for which we were rewarded points. We have had a season
with many highs and lows. The 3 podium positions during the first half of the season were clearly the
highlights for us. In the second half of the season, we just could not get it right. In a nutshell, however,
we can take positive stock of this season. We are already working to capacity on the coming season of
the ADAC GT Masters and further championships, and we hope to be able to give further details soon.
A further "little" season's finale will be held next weekend. We will have a guest-start at the FIA GT3
European Championship in Zolder (Belgium) with our Russian drivers Andrei Romanov and Rustem
Teregulov."